Ambient Assistive Technologies (AAT): socio-technology as a powerful tool for facing the inevitable sociodemographic challenges?

Results of an earlier survey revealed that the elderly perceived their current lighting situation as satisfactory, whereas interviewers assessed in-house lighting as too dark and risk-laden. The overall results of ALADIN showed a significant increase in well-being from the baseline final testing with the new adaptive lighting system.Positive results for wellbeing and life quality suggest that the outcome effects may be attributed to the introduction of technology as well as to social contacts arising from participating in the study. The technological guidance of the study supervisors, in particular, may have produced a strong social reactivity effect that was first observed in the famous Hawthorne experiments in the 1930s. As older adults seem to benefit both from meaningful social contacts as well as assistive technologies, the question arises how assistive technology can be socially embedded to be able to maximize positive health effects. Therefore ethical guidelines for development and use of new assistive technologies for handicapped/older persons have to be developed and should be discussed with regard to their applicability in the context of AAT.In most developed Western societies two long-term socio-demographic trends are becoming gradually more visible: First, the birth rate is below that which is necessary to retain a sustainable population. Second, individual life expectancy is steadily increasing due to improvements in medical science and health care. Even though the speed and course of demographic change, and social and economic contexts may vary throughout different parts of the world, the aging of the population has already become a global trend in many Western societies that will gradually have profound impact upon the life circumstances of many individuals [1]. Thus, governments will have to find culturally and ethically sustainable ways to deal with an aging and shrinking population and the economic consequences.According to the Congressional Resear